Third Person Limited: Jenna

“Did you like it?” Jenna asked. She sneaked a glance at Thomas, but he didn’t look up from the business section of the paper.

“Not at all,” he said. Jenna frowned, hurt. She’d worked so hard on the birthday cake she’d brought to his office yesterday, and he had said nary a word about it. Now she knew the truth.

Matthew frowned and blew on the surface of his coffee. “Really? I thought it was at least halfway decent.”

“Halfway decent?” Jenna echoed. Matthew was ambivalent about everything, but he’d seen her slave over that cake. “That’s not really flattering.”

Matthew arched an eyebrow. “Were you asking for flattery? Because last night you insisted on a whole lot of honesty --”

For a moment, Jenna was confused, but then her indignation devolved into laughter. She tossed a hand towel at Matthew, who caught it deftly from mid-air. “I wasn’t talking about last night, and you know it!” Matthew always picked up the innuendo no one else would suspect. If he started telling Thomas, her brother, about when they were making out on the couch last night, she’d kill him.

“Did I really? Because all I heard was a question, ‘did you like it?’ And judging by your tone, you wanted honesty --” Matthew’s voice took on that didactic edge it got when he felt cornered - or sarcastic.

“Now, now, children.” Thomas sounded so much like their father. Jenna resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Don’t even start with the children. Please. Not this morning.” Gina hauled herself into the only other empty chair at the kitchen table and slumped over, resting her head on her arms. “I never want to see another human being under the age of fourteen for the rest of my life.”

Finally, Gina was out of bed. At Thomas’s party after school, all his coworkers had brought their children, and it had somehow fallen to Gina to look after them. Once the children were gone, Gina had hit a bottle of Schnapps pretty hard.

Thomas peered at her over the top of his newspaper. “Don’t you teach first grade?”

Gina glared weakly and closed her eyes. Jenna smothered a laugh. Gina was crazy in love with Thomas and didn’t understand his near-robotic lack of emotion.

Matthew patted her shoulder. “A little hung over, are we?” His tone dripped with insincerity. He was as nice to his sister as Thomas was to his.

“Not so hung over I can’t pound you into the ground,” Gina said. The growl in her voice was a genuine threat; Jenna had heard it before.

Matthew puffed his chest out. “I’d like to see that.”

For a moment, Jenna could picture Gina chasing Matthew around the kitchen, armed with a rolling pin or another of Jenna’s baking implements. Matthew was fast, but Gina was strong. Jenna laughed. “So would I.”

(479 words)